Nick Reisman is reporting for State of Politics the fastest growing political affiliation in New York is not the Democratic or Republican parties. Instead, more New York voters during the past decade have chosen to register as political independents — unaligned with any of the major or minor parties on the ballot. Voters not enrolled in any party have far outpaced any other political affiliation in New York, even as Democrats have come to dominate voter registration overall. Data released by the state Board of Elections show that Democrats still hold a large enrollment advantage over Republicans, with 6.1 million registered voters. Republicans have just over 2.7 million voters registered. Both parties lost voters over the last year, but the number of independent or unenrolled voters increased by almost 47,000. This trend was likely because several minor parties were eliminated from the ballot line after they lost their status after the implementation of more stringent rules for qualifying as a viable party. The Greens and Libertarians, as well as the Independence Party, lost their ballot status, and the voters enrolled in those parties were automatically switched to unaffiliated. The trend since 2010 has shown a noticeable increase in unaffiliated voters. During that time, voters who have chosen to not pick a political party have grown by 22 percent. Democrats, by comparison, increased their enrollment by 14 percent over the same time period and Republicans have seen the growth in party enrollment remain flat since 2010. Read the full story at nystateofpolitics [dot] com.